Abstract

A possible influence on the creation of the Victorian explorer Hugh Godolphin, "F.R.G.S.," who appears in V., may be found in a character with the same unusual surname in Geoffrey Household's spy-thriller, Fellow Passenger. Of minimal literary merit, and far less exciting than other Household classics of the thriller genre, Fellow Passenger is a boring book by a notoriously uneven writer. Yet besides the character named Godolphin, it contains the seeds of a number of complex themes which subsequently flourish in the far richer imagination of Thomas Pynchon, who read Household as a teenager. I want to explore the relationships between V. and Household's book in order to demonstrate how Pynchon transforms the materials from a lowly potboiler into a serious work of art, and I want to focus finally on the metamorphosis of the Godolphin we see as a fatuous romantic escapist in Fellow Passenger, to the prophet of the twentieth century's Impulse toward destruction and doom we find in V. But first it will be necessary to give a brief summary of Household's novel, since it is likely to be far less familiar to readers than V.

How to Cite:

Simons, J. L., (1985) “Pynchon on Household: Reworking the Traditional Spy Novel”, Pynchon Notes 16, 83-88. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.379